Today's United States vs Ancient Rome (Hitler, state, viking, Spain)

[RobE]

The fall of Rome was completely predictable in retrospect. They were overextended militarily, there was rampant corruption (mercenaries not getting paid just melted away, leaving Roman installations more susceptible to being attacked and taxes in the provinces not reaching Rome itself due to sticky fingered praetors) and too often were ruled by incompetent, brutal and decadent leadership (Nero, Caligula, etc). I don't think the Roman love for partying, wine and sex (like no other culture cared for those things) really had much to do with it.

[j_k_k]

Originally Posted by RobE

The fall of Rome was completely predictable in retrospect. They were overextended militarily, there was rampant corruption (mercenaries not getting paid just melted away, leaving Roman installations more susceptible to being attacked and taxes in the provinces not reaching Rome itself due to sticky fingered praetors) and too often were ruled by incompetent, brutal and decadent leadership (Nero, Caligula, etc). I don't think the Roman love for partying, wine and sex (like no other culture cared for those things) really had much to do with it.

The fall of anything is predictable eventually. Even the British Empire eventually receded into a few small outposts and the primary island, and only a combination of periodic luck and a whole lot of gutsy seamanship kept some dangerous enemies from occupying that too.

It's important to recall, however, that the eastern Roman empire took more time to recede and fall. It was still very much a going concern when the Crusaders annoyed the heck out of it in the late 1090s

As for corruption, I don't think there was ever a time during which Rome ruled the Mediterranean where there wasn't rampant corruption, including the late Republic. In fact, given the communications improvements that came along with the Empire, it might have been easier to steal during the rather bumptious late Republic. In the meantime, Roman government held up pretty well even under Caligula and Nero, though the post-Nero multi-emperor year was a messy spot. Furthermore, neither emperor was quite as universally awful as he has been made out to be, especially Caligula in the early part of his rather short reign. And after the debacle of 69 CE, Vespasian truly put things to rights.

If you want to look for the slippery slope to the fall of the western Empire, you might well begin with the bad government and debasement of coinage that came with and after characters like Commodus and Caracalla. We then proceed to an era in which the military realizes that it has a cash cow: donatives. A new emperor, to secure the loyalty of troops who put him into power, would give them a handout. That's fine until they spend the handout. Thus, the 'barracks emperors' of the mid-200s CE. But even that was fairly well straightened out by Diocletian and Constantine. Had the model of Constantine been followed, the Empire might have held together better when the Germans began to decide it was better to fight Romans (if that's what it took to get into the Roman Empire, which is all most of the Germans wanted to begin with) than to fight the Huns.

However, by the period after Constantine the coinage wasn't the only thing that had been debased. The army's standard of equipment, discipline and training had fallen a long way from the manipular legions that beat Hannibal, and from the ten-cohort legions that conquered Dacia (for a while). The Germanic incursions began to cause real trouble, and by the mid-300s enough of the army itself was Germanic to raise some loyalty questions. The definition of 'Roman' had changed, become cosmopolitan, and had strayed rather far from the sober rectitude of Cicero, Augustus and Vespasian. Julian led an army into Persia to deal with Shapoor; arguably his most loyal lieutenant was a Frank named Nevitta. Julian lost the war and his life (363 CE). By 378 CE, Fritigern the Visigoth was butchering out a Roman army at Adrianople, including its emperor. A strong argument can be made that the fall of the Roman Empire (the western part, again) was a military collapse more than anything.

If you want my take on it, the worst problem was not foreign invaders, debasement, corruption, hatred of the secret police or crushing taxes. To me the biggest source of waste in the middle and late Empire was wars for control of it by dueling Imperial hopefuls, assassinations and coronations (diademations?) by armies, and general lack of continuity at the top. This consumed the middle part of the 200s and made a fiasco of the succession system introduced by Diocletian and Constantine (which, to be fair, may never have been realistic). It is very hard to operate an empire when your biggest worry is not good government or external invasion, but that onager Scummius who is said to be marching from Syria with an army to depose you (even as you doubt the fidelity of those troops supposedly loyal to you). Sure, Elagabulus was an embarrassment, but his personal habits only temporarily harmed the dignity of the purple. The notion that the purple should be conferred by soldiers, especially soldiers doing it partly because they expected an immediate monetary reward--that destroyed not merely the dignity of the office, but its continuity and authority.

You won't see the United States fall, but you will see it recede gradually in global importance. There is no way it can not. The developing world, now generally in full control of its own resources and increasingly assimilating new technologies while building the infrastructure that separates Third World from Second, and Second from First, is racing to catch up to the comforts enjoyed in the developed world. The challenge for the United States in this century will be learning to relate to a world it can't so easily bribe or bully at need, a world which retains some grievances and jealousies that start us at a bit of a disadvantage. We will actually have to learn to talk to other peoples as equals, and appeal to their national interests. We will have to learn to bargain and yield; give something to get something. We will have to overcome our tremendous national arrogance and conceit. Happily, we have a lot of resources and ingenuity (this last in no small part because for so long many of the world's brightest minds have come here to enrich us). If we want badly enough to adapt, we can. If we choose not to, we won't fall; we'll just become less important, as other peoples increasingly consider it more worthwhile to deal with nations who don't feel a national dignity disaster is caused by meeting someone halfway and listening to what he or she has to say.

[Leovigildo]

j.k.k

You're entirely right. But I believe that the main reason of the fall of the Western Empire was "fatigue". The Western Empire's birth rate was ridiculous, the tax burden to maintain the "limes" was too aggravating and the economy of Western Empire could not support the empire.

For example, Hispania, very large land exploitations with large amount of slaves and servants, cities that were entirely administrative and without walls, used to Pax Romana.

The Empire depended entirely on the armies that could not be sustained anymore, no people, no new conquests, no new slaves.

Spain became something similar to Spanish Texas, large landholders but relinquishing their defense to a vanishing Empire.

But the end of the Empire and the onset of the Medieval period started during the 3rd and 4rd Century, and in fact, Germanic invasions didn't finish Roman administration and culture.

What brought havoc to the Mediterranean Western Roman Empire was Islam.

[Grandstander]

Originally Posted by RobE

The fall of Rome was completely predictable in retrospect. .

Isn't everything completely predictable in retrospect?

I predict that you will post the above yesterday.

[Trudy Rose]

Originally Posted by Leovigildo

j.k.k

You're entirely right. But I believe that the main reason of the fall of the Western Empire was "fatigue". The Western Empire's birth rate was ridiculous, the tax burden to maintain the "limes" was too aggravating and the economy of Western Empire could not support the empire.

For example, Hispania, very large land exploitations with large amount of slaves and servants, cities that were entirely administrative and without walls, used to Pax Romana.

The Empire depended entirely on the armies that could not be sustained anymore, no people, no new conquests, no new slaves.

Spain became something similar to Spanish Texas, large landholders but relinquishing their defense to a vanishing Empire.

But the end of the Empire and the onset of the Medieval period started during the 3rd and 4rd Century, and in fact, Germanic invasions didn't finish Roman administration and culture.

What brought havoc to the Mediterranean Western Roman Empire was Islam.

This is not the first time you mentioned this. Is it perhaps because Spain was, for the most part, invaded and ruled by the Arabs for so long?

[big daryle]

Originally Posted by bchris02

America is quickly going the way of Ancient Rome. I fear I will see it in my lifetime. America is destroying itself from the inside-out and most people today do not even see it. American culture no longer has an values, heroes, or meaning, only an 'if it feels good, do it' philosophy. That is the philosophy that dominated in Roman times.

i AGREE, WE ARE NEAR THE ENd!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[6 FOOT 3]

Originally Posted by Trudy Rose

This is not the first time you mentioned this. Is it perhaps because Spain was, for the most part, invaded and ruled by the Arabs for so long?

Yeap i second about you wanting to know how Islam conquered the Western Roman Empire . Firstly when it ''officially'' fell in 476 it wasn't even an empire (not since the 300's) as it was just confined to parts of Italy when Odoacer ruled it as the first non emperor and secondly the Vandals controlled North Africa until 534 when Justinian I finally conquered them and then afterwards the Byzantine's controlled North Africa as they needed it's grains until around the early 600's when the the Umayyads (Islam) finally swept across and established a foothold and later invaded Spain in the 700's.

But i'm sure we'll get an explanation Trudy

[cpg35223]

Originally Posted by ovcatto

Sorry to deprive you of your gotcha moment, but we weren't discussing the inherent merit of one empire vs another or its subsequent influence, simply whether one can describe an empire confined to the Mediterranean rim with portions of south western Europe and the Middle East an area of 2.2 million square miles, as being a "global power".

There were no global powers. However there were powers who utterly dominated the shaping of the world, which speaks to global influence. To this end the Romans and the Greeks had no peer.

[ovcatto]

Originally Posted by cpg35223

There were no global powers. However there were powers who utterly dominated the shaping of the world, which speaks to global influence. To this end the Romans and the Greeks had no peer.

Again, that is a rather eurocentric viewpoint. It would be my guess that Asian powers, then and now, were only tangentially influenced by Greece or Rome. But if you would care to argue to the contrary I would be interested in reading such an argument.

[cpg35223]

Originally Posted by ovcatto

Again, that is a rather eurocentric viewpoint. It would be my guess that Asian powers, then and now, were only tangentially influenced by Greece or Rome. But if you would care to argue to the contrary I would be interested in reading such an argument.

Sure thing, even though I don't have much time today. From the scientific method to medicine to technology to government to finance to government, in big ways and small, the Western ways have prevailed. Japan has a parliament that runs along western lines. Even China's government represents western thinking, if more of the statist approach. India uses English common law, which was based on Roman jurisprudence.